Pagina's

I have purposely not blogged during the Christmas season, because the season is for concentrating on other matters then day to day drudgery. The really important stuff, in short: Family, friends and faith.

Not that there wasn't anything to report. Politically the Christmas season saw the elites, including the royal house, alienating their main base of support in a manner that leaves one fearing the Netherlands has passed a point of no return.

There was the Christmas speech by Queen Beatrix, in which she took a shot at Wilders and those that support him.

'Coarseness in word and deed are eating away at tolerance' and discussion is being replaced by hardened standpoints, the queen said. People are becoming tarred with the same brush and prejudices taken as fact, she said.

The queen also criticised the way individualism was giving way to egoism. 'If we lose sight of what binds us all, we are undermining society,' the queen said.

The anti-immigration party PVV is to submit a motion calling for the queen’s role in government to be restricted to ceremonial functions, NOS tv reports on Thursday.

PVV leader Geert Wilders says in a number of newspapers that queen Beatrix’s Christmas Day speech was ‘stuffed full of multi-cultural nonsense’ and was largely directed at his party.

In her televised speech, the queen criticised the increase in intolerance and the way discussion is being replaced by hardened standpoints. ‘The PVV was not mentioned but everyone understands what she was driving at,’ Wilders says in the Telegraaf.

No direct reference to Wilders or his PVV was made, however. This is SOP for the royal house, which is banned from making political statements. But this plausible deniability was utterly ruined by the PMs reaction to the planned motion.

Wilders says he wants to defend Dutch interests, but he is destroying that which makes the Netherlands the Netherlands: our royal family, our tolerance and our solidarity with people beyond our borders.

Which pretty much gave the game away: The Queen *was* talking about Wilders, the PVV and the increasing number of Dutch that support them.

This actually was a culmination of what seemed to be a campaign (NL) by the royals to disabuse the Dutch of the notion that there are even Dutch. In a series of events, starting with the (in)famous 'there is no Dutch identity' by Maxima, wife of the crown prince and hence future queen.

The net result of this seems to be a severe dent in the popularity of the royal house. Which is saying something in a country that is fiercely loyal to its royalty.

The front page of Wednesday’s Trouw newspaper is devoted to a public appeal calling for tolerance and respect to combat the ‘downward spiral of intolerance and indifference’ in society.

[...]

An advert like this on the front page is exceptional, says the newspaper. ‘Trouw has not signed the appeal but believes the initiative deserves special attention,’ it says.

The appeal is, says Trouw, the result of a discussion which began with an appeal by the chairman of the HBO college board Doekle Terpstra in the paper a few weeks ago.

Terpstra has called on people to fight the anti-immigration sentiments promoted by Geert Wilders’ PVV party which he says are polarising society.

The initiators of the appeal have set up a website where the public can support their initiative.

‘The Dutch culture is traditionally one of openness and tolerance. Recently this culture has come under pressure. First we had the tendency to turn a blind eye too much. Now intolerance is threatening to take over,’ Terpstra told Radio 1 news on Wednesday.

The advert was displayed on the front page of Trouw, in what would seem to be an abject surrender of editorial indepence or journalistic ethics and an open embrace of political activism. The author of the initiative is of course the very same man who called Widers 'an evil' continuing 'and evil must be stopped'.

This is all the more salient since Trouw started its existence as an illegal resistance paper in WW2. As little as six months ago Trouw was fearless in its criticism of islam. Thus, traditionally Trouw has always been on the side of freedom.

But it seems that the new editorial leadership has brought Trouw firmly into the fold of the political elites. The same elites that will surrender us to the non-democratic rulers of the EUnion. Trouw has become a part of the problem. And will lose readers (NL) for it. If ever there was a clear example of why people are more and more turning away from the traditional MSM outlets this regretable and disgusting turn to activism by what used to be considered (by yours truly) a quality paper is it.

In a truly bizarre twist to the story of Terpstra's initiative, it came out that the 'Call for Tolerance' was purposely signed by whites only. No, really. In NRC Dagblad Doekle Terpstra is literally quoted as saying:

We wilden alleen witte mensen op de lijst (We only wanted white people on the list - KV)

In a slightly less then coherent explanation for this curious piece of decision making Terpstra says:

There were muslims who wanted to sign too. Mohammed Sini, president of the Stichting Islam and Burgerschap (Society Islam and Citizenship) for example. But he isn't white. And this initiative is from the white elite. They show their colors. We want to join forces. There is more happening in society then is realized in the Hague. We hope that islamic organisations will contact other muslim organisations.

Especially the last sentence in this rambling attempt at... I really don't know... seems to inadvertantly confirm Wilders' verdict of the signatories to this misbegotten call: Dhimmi's, the lot of them (NL):

PVV-leader Geert Wilders reacted disapprovingly to the call for tolerance and respect that various prominents made in the daily Trouw today. 'Islam does not deserve any respect, but needs to be fiercely opposed as the intolerant and fascist ideology it is.'

And it seems to be an attempt at whipping the Dutch population into guilt-ridden obedience in the face of petulant muslim demands. Yet again we see that infuriating, and probably deliberate, confusion created by the word 'allochtone'. Muslims are ny and large allochtone, thus opposition to islam is opposition to all foreigners, which is racism, which makes us xenophobic country hicks.

We have visited that subject a number of times, most notably here. It is a bait and switch which rings hollower every time it is trotted out again. Speaking just for this lowly blog: We welcome anyone, no matter where he or she hails from. We only ask that you accept what we are and what we expect of ourselves. And you should strife to meet those expectations as well. What we object to, what we fight, and what sends our blood boiling into a murdering rage, is the ease with which the principles that we've made ours over at least 450 years of history, are thrown out in favor of one particular group of uncivilized, loudmouthed and tyranical religious zealots.

In a country where it has been drummed into us for decades we should be kind to animals, introducing livestock keeping measures that are in no small part contributing to the destruction of agriculture in the Netherlands, we are told we must abide animals being slaughtered in an halal manner. In a country that took pride in having the gay capital of the world, we are to accept that gay couples cannot walk the streets safely anymore. In a country that is forced to favor women in job application procedures, in the name of equality, we are told to accept that women may be covered, swim seperately and are occasionally murdered if they adopt the culture of their host country a little too eagerly.

And for whom? Not the Chinese and the Vietnamese. Not the Ghanese, nor the Assyrian-orthodox Turks. Not the Moluccans, not the Surinams, not even the Antillians. Thus my question stands: Who are the cause of constant irritation that precipitated this ill-targeted call (as well as the equally ill-targeted Christmas speech).

The bygone year, 2007, will go down in history as the year that the disconnect between ruling elites and the ruled came out into the open. It is only fitting that the first days of 2008 saw the publication of an initiative that will inevitably widen the gap even further. It seems to me that the house of cards is nearing tipping point.

If it does, my only hope is that the Dutch will remember who the innocent bystanders caught up in all this are: the Chinese and the Vietnamese. The Ghanese and the Assyrian-orthodox Turks. The Moluccans, the Surinams and even the Antillians.

[UPDATE001 02 - 01] And the fun is only starting, tomorrow, in the same daily Trouw, various mulsim organisations will publish their own pamphlet (NL), entitled: '2008, zonder angst voor de ander' ('2008, without fear for the other'). Coming hot on the heels of the 'Call for Tolerabce', this seems to be a closely coordinated campaign, with Trouw in the centre of it. The betrayal of this once fine publication of the very principles it was founded on is complete. Moreover, evidently the political and media elites have now openly sided with muslim special-interest groups against their own population. Disgraceful, there is no other word for it.